Adrian Baldwin
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Observations
  • Reviews
  • Blog
  • The Blog Library
  • My 70s Things
  • Contact Me
  • Links

Mormons and Hell's Angels

6/30/2014

1 Comment

 
Writing about religion is fraught with problems; let’s face it more conflicts are caused by it than anything else. Generally I avoid the subject, I have no interest in causing offence (though there is a risk however unintentional) and spiritual matters are not exactly my forte.

This post is about religion albeit one particular faith, as portrayed in a recently aired documentary, and about how the viewing experience made me feel. I compare the viewing feelings to those acquired through reading something on a very different, but kind of related, topic.       

I watched a documentary on Channel 4 last Thursday night (26th June) that disturbed me; the programme called “Meet the Mormons” was about the Mormon faith – a branch of Christianity that I’ll freely admit that I know very little about.  If you missed it, pop to 4OD and catch up.

The film followed a 20 year old British lad called Josh Field as he got more deeply indoctrinated into the faith and became a missionary in order to spread the word of his church more widely. The process of becoming a missionary involved him sacrificing two years of his life, attending a residential course to prepare him for his mission, moving away from (and severing almost all ties with) his family and friends, being allocated to a faith buddy/chaperone with whom he would spend all his time (Elder Bauman, a downright creepy individual if you ask me) and surrendering the use of his first name for the duration of his mission.

Personal-sacrifice for faith advancement is not exactly an unusual concept but for all the sacrifice, his mission was in effect door to door or street based personal selling – he had conversion targets too – a minimum of four faith transfers over two years. My opinion; faith selling has to be the most miserable kind of job one could do – worse than hard-selling double glazing, payment protection claims or working for a recruitment agency.

In following Josh (or Elder Field as re-designated), the film crew was chaperoned at all times by a member of the church’s PR management team. The Mormons were clearly quite concerned about being misrepresented or depicted as decidedly weird – maybe the PR guys had seen Louis Theroux’s “Scientology and Me”. So in interviewing Josh, the journalist had to deal with the presence of forces actively censoring her material. The conspicuous censorship, instead of protecting the Mormons had the opposite effect of making the organisation look manipulative, controlling and more than a little bit odd (in many ways a lot like Louis Theroux’s piece but set in Leeds).

Channel 4 is well known for making programmes likely to induce viewers to shout at their tellies. Let’s not be naïve, a documentary painting a picture of anything as normal, nice, fun, inclusive etc. is less likely to attract viewers than something more sensational or dramatic. In the case of this documentary, the portrayal of the Mormons was not comforting – what was presented was effectively a case study in brainwashing because one watched the young, enthusiastic, cheerful Josh being slowly crushed and converted into a clone of handler Bauman.

Added to the brainwashing were other ‘facts’ (a pinch of salt may be necessary) that compounded the impression that the Mormons' faith is bizarre and commercialised – Mormons believe Jesus went to America after his resurrection; the faith was invented in America in the 1820s; members are expected to pay significant sums of money to the church; dead people can be baptised; non-members are not allowed into Mormon places of worship.

The subject of impressions brings me on to the Hell’s Angels.

Whilst obviously not a religious institution, the infamous motorcycle club has also been on my mind because I have been reading a book about the life and times of Ralph “Sonny” Barger, a leading light in the American movement from its earliest days.

Sonny’s memoirs entitled “Hell’s Angel” don’t make for comfortable reading, he was (maybe still is) a hard man with a legendary disregard for authority; his book shares scenes of drug abuse, violence, death, Harley riding, prison and protest in a straightforward and dispassionate way. But despite the non-conformist, unapologetically aggressive material, Sonny Barger achieves this anti-hero type of status that will make a reader warm towards him and his club.

The HAMC, which began in the States and is now a worldwide organisation, has its disciples, all carefully selected and inducted into the club; come what may, members are loyal to their brethren; Angels live and die their way; if you are not in the club, you can’t visit a clubhouse without an invitation; the motorcycle and back patches are the outward expressions of faith, the road is the place of worship; chapters make up the organisation a bit like they make up books of faith.  The parallels between the Angels and the Mormons are there if you think about it.

Now I know that thanks to the art of journalism, my emotions have been manipulated by the film makers and Sonny Barger’s biographers; I have been fed the content they have chosen to give me (from their perspectives only). But in making the connections between the two groups, I found I was more perturbed by the Mormons than by the Hell’s Angels.  And that was unexpected.  

Blog Home
Blog Library
Home

1 Comment
Jacob link
7/27/2014 06:16:01 am

I just saw Meet the Mormons, and totally agree-- Having the PR person there at all times was a poor decision and made them look super controlling.

I'm a Mormon and joined the Church ten years ago. It was the best decision I ever made and the doc definitely made things look a little bit more strange than it actually is. If ever you have any questions, please do let me know!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Adrian Baldwin

    Blogging for more than a decade



    Archives

    February 2025
    January 2025
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    February 2024
    September 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    December 2022
    July 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    May 2021
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.